November

Not now nis the time of merimake.
Nor Pan to herye, nor with loue to playe:
Sike myrth in May is meetest for to make,
Or summer shade vnder the cocked haye.
But nowe sadde Winter welked hath the day,
And Phoebus weary of his yerely taske,
Ystabled hath his steedes in lowlye laye,
And taken vp his ynne in Fishes haske.
Thilke sollein season sadder plight doth aske:
And loatheth sike delightes, as thou doest prayse:
The mornefull Muse in myrth now list ne maske,
As shee was wont in youth and sommer dayes. 

OCTOBER

Piers, I haue pyped erst so long with payne,

That all mine Oten reedes bene rent and wore:

And my poore Muse hath spent her spared store,

Yet little good hath got, and much lesse gayne.

Such pleasaunce makes the Grashopper so poore,

And ligge so layd, when Winter doth her straine.

Sixteenth Century Weather

The Shepheardes Calendar

September

Diggon, I am so stiffe, and so stanck,

That vneth may I stand any more:

And nowe the Westerne wind bloweth sore,

That nowe is in his chiefe souereigntee,

Beating the withered leafe from the tree.

Sitte we downe here under the hill:

Tho may we talke, and tellen our fill,

And make a mocke at the blustring blast.

Now say on Diggon, what euer thou hast.

Were the seasons in a different configuration in the 16th century? September seems rather early for the leaves to be blown off the trees and I've noticed this elsewhere since deciding to use The Shepheardes Calendar to mark the passing months. Either Spenser was not particularly accurate in this or changes happen at different times now. The New Style calendar, adopted in 1732, means that we are thirteen days in advance of Spenser's time. So this might account for part of this effect. But surely not all of it.

August

TELL me Perigot, what shalbe the game, Wherefore with myne thou dare thy musick matche?

Or bene thy Bagpypes renne farre out of frame? Or hath the Crampe thy ioynts benomd with ache?

*
Ah Willye, when the hart is ill assayde, How can Bagpipe, or ioynts be well apayd?

Playing in a Lowly Grove

Two Views of Midsummer from 

Spenser's Shepheardes Calendar for Iune

Hobbinol:

But frendly Faeries, met with many Graces, 

And lightfote Nymphes can chace the lingring night, 

With Heydeguyes, and trimly trodden traces, 

Whilst systers nyne, which dwell on Parnasse hight, 

Doe make them musick, for their more delight: 

And Pan himselfe to kisse their christall faces, 

Will pype and daunce, when Phoebe shineth bright: 

Such pierlesse pleasures haue we in these places. 

[...]

Colin:

Of Muses Hobbinol, I conne no skill: 

For they bene daughters of the hyghest Ioue, 

And holden scorne of homely shepheards quill. 

For sith I heard, that Pan with Phoebus stroue, 

Which him to much rebuke and Daunger droue: 

I neuer lyst presume to Parnasse hyll, 

But pyping lowe in shade of lowly groue, 

I play to please my selfe, all be it ill. 

The urge to idealise from Hobbinol is here opposed by Colin (Spenser's alter ego) who rejects the urge to join the gods on Parnassus but prefers instead to play his pipe in a 'lowly grove'. I'm reminded of the modern poet R.S Thomas who said he "played a small pipe by the side of the road" and affected to prefer an unfenced Welsh mountain to the ordered gardens of a London park. Neither Spenser nor Thomas could be said to have absolutely resisted the preferments of high office but both embody this urge in at least some of what they wrote and Thomas maintained his aloofness from the establishment to the end.

The value of a life lived away from the cut and thrust of the city, the court, the high table, the Parnassian heights has been the stuff of a pastoral ideal in many periods of history that has at times been a major impetus and at others seemed like an odd aberration. But not to me. 

Spenser's Glosses

As for the Spenser quotes over on the right... why is it that I find the glosses so fascinating in The Shepheardes Calendar? Apparently they were done by Spenser's associate Edward Kirke who, it has been noted, "sometimes unconsciously, sometimes of set purpose, fails to express his author's intention" (E de Selincourt). Ostensibly part of the project of redefining English poetic diction (not for the last time) they capture in their very irascibility the tone of the fascination of the current of platonic mysticism in the protestantism of the period with the pastoral ideal, while needing to dismiss the pagan superstitions which might be associated with it. That marvellous gloss on 'Ladyes of the lake' with its dismissal of the 'lowd lyers' who perpetrated Arthurian myth together with the desire to precisely define the nature of nymphs is a glorious example.

FEBRUARY

AH for pittie, wil ranke Winters rage,

These bitter blasts neuer ginne tasswage?

The kene cold blowes through my beaten hyde,

All as I were through the body gryde.

My ragged rontes all shiver and shake,

As doen high Towers in an earthquake:

They wont in the wind wagge their wrigle tailes,

Perke as Peacock: but nowe it auales.

Kene) sharpe. 

Gride) perced: an olde word much vsed of Lidgate, but not found (that I know of) in Chaucer.

 Ronts) young bullockes